Organising the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement: the case of the ‘We Divest’ campaign

In this article, I critically analyse the case of the We Divest campaign as an example of a divestment initiative of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement to highlight aspects of how the movement works, particularly through its organisa-tional structure and processes. The cam-paign targets TIAA-CREF, one of the largest retirement fund providers in the US, to divest funds currently held in a number of companies the campaign has identified as profiting from Israel’s viola- tions of international law. In examining the case I determine certain organisational characteristics of the movement, i.e. net-worked, decentralised, grassroots, horizon-tal and border-crossing. By identifying certain aspects of the movement’s infras-tructure through an investigation into the We Divest campaign, I argue that the organisational structure and processes identified in the case study suggest that the movement represents a new and different way of challenging Israel.